Let's talk about sitcoms

1. Canada's Muslim sitcom answer to Goodness Gracious Me: Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Some excerpts from the interview on On The Media (gotta love that show):

BOB GARFIELD: [...] Since January, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been airing Little Mosque on the Prairie, a comedy about a small Muslim congregation in rural Canada rubbing elbows with the local Christians, where headscarves, prayer mats and Islamic tradition all serve as props....Zarqa Nawaz is the creator of the show and Mary Darling its executive producer. They join me now. Zarqa, Mary, welcome to the show.

[...]

BOB GARFIELD: But I have to ask you this. In many ways, I think Little Mosque just exchanges one set of stereotypes for another batch, I mean, or at least typical one-dimensional sitcom characters. I mean, you’ve got the pretty one, you’ve got the venal one, you've got the almost-perfect one, your imam, you've got one zealot, and so on. There's not a whole lot of verisimilitude here. In that sense, have you really gained anything by way of genuine understanding?

ZARQA NAWAZ: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would completely disagree with you. In fact, what we've done is created Muslims who are husbands and wives, who pay bills and raise their kids. We have never seen that Muslim on television ever before.

And I've had Americans come up to me and say, oh, my God, you know, I look at this bearded man; instead of now being afraid of bearded men when I see them on the street, I think that they're regular people, and you've taken away that fear that I used to have before, ‘cause all I ever would see on CNN or Fox or 24. They were the ones screaming and yelling, death to America and oppression to women, and that's all they were.

And yet, now you have a man in the show who's a single father, raising a daughter, struggling, having a difficult time, and it's changed my perception of you and your community. So absolutely, I would say it's done a lot for change.

BOB GARFIELD: Now you are in New York for an event at the Museum of Radio and Television. Last week, I guess, you were in Los Angeles at its Museum of Radio and Television for a panel about this program because it's generated so much interest. You're all about creating understanding, exploding stereotypes. And you go through this entire panel, and a woman stands up with the last question, and what does she say?

MARY DARLING: How do you feel about making a show that promotes terrorism?

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] And how do you drag yourself out of bed to go to work in the morning –

MARY DARLING: [LAUGHS] I have to, you know –

[OVERTALK]

BOB GARFIELD: - if that's what you're dealing with?

MARY DARLING: Obviously, you knew you touched a nerve. And I think the Jewish community has gone through this, the African-American community has gone through this. And through popular culture they've been able to erase some of the stereotypes about them. I know it sounds strange, but sitcoms are sort of a vehicle for a change in people's perceptions of an image of a group of people. And now it's our turn.

There you go. Sitcom as mechanism for consciousness-raising. If that's not co-opting the machine and using it for good, I don't know what is. Plus the killer bit about why this sort of thing is necessary ("How do you feel about making a show that promotes terrorism?"--that's a facepalm, right there).

Ok, so while I have actually been enjoying my year more-or-less without TV, I think there are going to be a couple of sitcoms I am going to take up.

1. One is Scrubs, which I've started to see a little of and have really enjoyed,
   
2. and the other is Ugly Betty because the premise sounds interesting and the reviews have been good. (Do you know, when I was home last week and flipping through the channels I actually saw a little bit of the original Spanish-language Ugly Betty? I knew right away what it must be because you never see women looking like that in most telenovelas.)
   
3. Oh wait, I have to add one more: 30 Rock. I was excited about this because of course I love Tina Fey, but then the reviews said it was uneven, but then I saw a few minutes of it and I liked it enough to want to see more. You know what would be so cool? If somehow they stuck 30 Rock and 60 whatever thing together and there was a show made by Tina Fey and Aaron Sorkin together! Think about it! It would be so cool. As long as Sorkin wasn't too bossy and dumb and lighting up all the time.

But except for those, and The Simpsons and Good Eats I'm not planning to watch much TV. Will probably give it up again in the fall out of not having a TV, anyway. You know, it's not that I think TV as a medium is inherently bad (even though most US shows make me want to gouge my eyes out), but I think commercials help to make it bad. Not just because of their content, which is mind- and soul-rotting, but also because of the ways they constrain shows' format and content.
- posted by k @ 8:42 AM